I’ve just encountered this expression, which means ‘not to trust someone’, right? Please let me know the origin of this idiom. Thank you. ???

My theory is Caesar just got the day’s wrong

Great stuff, Katy. The calendar is something we moderns take for granted at our peril. Let’s not forget that we still have serious imperfections in ours, requiring peculiar adjustments every fourth and every fourhundredth year. Not very elegant. I’m with you. I think Caesar simply screwed up. It’s human, after all.

- PW

Very interesting, Katie!  I was very impressed when I thought you had written it off the top of your head, but now I’m just regularly impressed.  

monrad

When I posted my question here I was hoping to get an answer from someone who knew Julius Caesar personally ....  ;) Thanks a lot, Katy!

I was hoping to get an answer from someone who knew Julius Caesar personally

Yepp, old Julius and I used to hang out on a regular basis, when he wasn’t conquering some place or other in BFE. He was a sly bugger. Good Old Gaius one minute, His Imperial Majesty the next. Still, he liked his bourbon.

Actually, I was responsible for one of his great quotes. We were sitting in a small bar just off the Forum, getting drunk as usual, and I saw this beautiful vestal undulating by. So I’m like, "vini, vidi, video" or "wine, look, porno flik". He just grunts, as usual, and gives me that Lawrence Olivier-look. It’s like he never really got over that Egyptian broad, whatever her name was. He told me she had the nicest asp he’d ever laid his imperial hands on.

So, anyhow, make a long story short, some wannabe historian or other Juvenal delinquant is taking notes in the corner of the bar and gets it ALL WRONG. Danmed historians, always sharpening their styluses when they should be paying more attention. Stands to reason, though, this geek’s version of things is what gets handed down to posterity.

- Disgruntled

Loved it, PW!

...the greatest asp….

Sitran

one of PW’s funnier pieces

Hell, you should see the movie.

- PW

[quote author=Palewriter link=board=etymology;num=1057890213;start=0#12 date=07/16/03 at 00:04:34] Hell, you should see the movie.

Canadian comedy duo Wayne and Shuster made a record-breaking 67 appearances on the Ed Sullivan show.

In their first appearance on the program, Wayne played a Roman detective investigating the murder of Julius Caesar in "Rinse the Blood Off My Toga." His use of "martinus" as the singular of "martini" quickly became a catchphrase (some New York bars began advertising "Martinus Specials"), as did the line "I told him, ‘Julie, don’t go’," uttered several times by Caesar’s wife.

Above quoted from Scenario Productions.

Great stuff, all!

;D

-Tim

His use of "martinus" as the singular of "martini" quickly became a catchphrase

Now that’s REALLY funny.

Of course, it’s mostly about the olives. I’m seriously considering becoming a vegetarian. A diet of only olives, surrounded by gin and the wave of a vermouth cork. They come like that, don’t they?  :)

- PW
who regards the martinus as the epogee of civilization

[quote author=Palewriter link=board=etymology;num=1057890213;start=15#16 date=07/16/03 at 23:46:34] . . . Of course, it’s mostly about the olives. I’m seriously considering becoming a vegetarian. A diet of only olives, surrounded by gin and the wave of a vermouth cork. They come like that, don’t they?  :)

- PW
who regards the martinus as the epogee of civilization

What?  A Texan who doesn’t drink bourbon and branch?  I do remember one time when the bar ran out of Jack Daniels and I had to suckle George Dickel . . .

Aaand, for those who can remember POGO, I quote Albert the Alligator - "OOG, Friday the thirteenth comes on Wednesday this month !!"

EdW

PS. Am I just talking to myself or do people read these old threads ??  ???